


Six Feet Apart But Definitely Gay

by hvllanders



Series: interwebs [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Coming Out, Gay Ned Leeds, Gay Peter Parker, M/M, Precious Peter Parker, interwebs, its just young teens trying to tell people about their relationship okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:21:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24883753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hvllanders/pseuds/hvllanders
Summary: orFive Times Peter and Ned Fail at Telling People They're Dating and One Time They Don't
Relationships: Ned Leeds/Peter Parker
Series: interwebs [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1375558
Comments: 12
Kudos: 246





	Six Feet Apart But Definitely Gay

**Author's Note:**

> listen...this is stupid and fluffy and just come vibe with me and my smol teenage children as they fumble about. you don't need have read any of my other interwebs fics to get this one, but if you have, this takes place shortly after "omg, it's spider-man!"

1.

Thinking they’d be able to tell MJ had been the first mistake.

In Ned’s mind, they had to tell her, because their friend group was rather on the small side. If two-thirds of the people sitting at the lunch table were dating, it was bound to be fairly obvious sooner or later. For the longest time it had just been him and Peter alone in the hallways, him and Peter riding the train home, him and Peter building their various LEGO creations. And then, somehow, in the slippery and unexpected way friendships tended to happen, MJ had materialized at their lunch table and wedged herself as an immoveable fixture in their friend group. Ned didn’t want that to change, despite the fact that him and Peter were now boyfriends.

Peter, on the other hand, had been against telling her. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” he had said. “While we’re still figuring this out.”

But Ned had cajoled him, eventually, into telling her with the promise there could even be a script for the whole ordeal. He would start with, “Hey, MJ, can we talk to you about something?”

And then-

“Is it about how you two are making out?”

Ned’s mouth dropped open, because it was supposed to be Peter’s line next, but MJ was just looking up at them from the lunch table with her unswerving calm, fiddling with her french fries.

Peter, instead of stating his next line, “We hope this doesn’t change anything between us,” just began babbling. “What? No, no, well, I mean, yes, actually we are, well, sort of dating, it’s really in its infancy-”

“Well, not really in its infancy,” Ned corrected, slightly stung by the remark.

“Yeah, I guess more like in the infancy of telling people, like, we, well…” he looked to Ned, clearly lost.

“How did you know?” Ned asked her.

“How did I know?” MJ fixed him with a glare. “Honestly, sometimes I wonder what you consider my intelligence to be.” She motioned a limp fry to where the boys were holding hands. “The playful fingers were a great clue.”

Ned disentangled his fingers, taking Peter’s hand and wiping it on his jacket. His palms always got clammy when he was nervous. “Sometimes friends can hold hands. You and I have held hands.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Sure. But not like that.” The fry was flopped towards Ned’s thumb, tracing circles over Peter’s.

“Touché.”

“Listen.” The lunch bell rang, and she gathered up Ned and Peter’s trash into one ball to shoot it into a trash can. “You don’t have to give me some song and dance about how this won’t change our friendship and we’re all gonna keep singing around the campfire and all that or whatever. I get it. It’s cool. If I’ve learned anything from hanging with you losers it’s that you need me, so I’m not worried about it. Okay? We’re still cool.”

“See?” Ned nudged his shoulder against Peter’s. “I told you it’d go fine.”

“You’re not going to slip anything up though, right?” she asked before they parted ways. She still had her perfectly calm exterior, but Ned saw the flash of worry in her eyes.

“What do you mean?” Peter asked.

“About your…thing?” She made a half-hearted thwipping motion with her wrist.

“Oh, oh, no of course not!”

“We would never be that stupid,” Ned assured her. “It’s not like Spider-Man and random high schooler Ned Leeds are going to ever be connected anyway.”

She merely raised an eyebrow. “Whatever you say.”

2.

They tried to tell May next because, plausibly, she already knew.

“But we don’t _know_ that she knows, you know?” Peter was saying as they walked, hands swinging, into Peter’s apartment. They were planning on making chicken parmesan for dinner (May’s favorite), and Ned had a feeling she would be happy about both the news and the dinner choice. Peter’s face was still a delicate shade of white swung the bag of groceries up onto the counter, however, and Ned tried to let his boyfriend’s nerves bother him.

“Peter.” Ned got the chicken out and started dicing it. “She’s walked in on us half-naked in your bedroom. Multiple times. I think she knows.” He didn’t know why Peter was so hesitant. May was about as accepting as they came. Was he nervous to tell her or was he nervous about their relationship?

“That doesn’t mean anything.” The tips of Peter’s ears reddened to match the tomato he was holding. “Besides, both of those times were related to Spider-Man things not…you know…”

“What?” Ned asked coyly, spinning around so he was pressed against Peter’s back, wrapping his arms around him awkwardly, making sure not to touch him with his hands. “I don’t know. I’m not smart like you.”

“Please,” Peter scoffed, “this coming from the boy who hacked into Tony Stark’s technology.” He pushed at Ned’s arms, though Ned knew he wasn’t trying hard, as they barely moved. “Who can’t even grab me properly because he has raw chicken all over his hands.” He picked up Ned’s wrists, spinning around so they were face to face. “You’re impossible.” And then he pecked him on the nose.

There was a cough from beside them, and they whirled around to see May, newly back from work, one eyebrow raised in mock surprise.

Since Peter still looked like a fish out of water, it was Ned who somehow found the courage to say, “Actually, for once, this is exactly what it looks like.”

“Oh, I know,” May closed her eyes, laughing to herself. “I know.”

3.

The first person Peter actually wanted to tell was somehow, inexplicably, Mr. Harrington.

“It’s in the rules,” he kept insisting as they loitered outside of Mr. Harrington’s office after Decathlon Practice. He was pointing to the official list of Decathlon club rules voted in with the recent club year. “See, it says right here. _Members of the team may not have relations, romantic or otherwise, with other members of the team as to not disrupt the competitive atmosphere._ ”

“Since when do you care about not breaking the rules?” Ned asked him incredulously. “You are, quite literally, a vigilante. Last I checked that wasn’t per the Decathlon rules, let alone state law.”

“Spider-Man is irrelevant to this discussion.”

Ned rolled his eyes. “Even so, with MJ as team captain I don’t think you need to worry too much about getting kicked off. Besides, she probably amended that rule just because she wanted us to squirm.” In fact, that seemed like a particularly MJ thing to do.

Peter danced from foot to foot, and Ned put a hand on his shoulder, trying to quiet him. “We don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. If you…you know, don’t want people to know about us or something.”

He’d meant it as bait, as a prompt for Peter to say, “Of course that isn’t it! I want the world to know about us!” But instead he just bit his lip, whispering, “I just feel awkward, like Mr. Harrington is gonna know or something and it’s gonna be weird and-”

“I’m gonna know what?” Mr. Harrington emerged from his office, carrying a teetering pile of papers in his arms. The stack was so tall it blocked his face, and he had to peer awkwardly around the pile in order to actually see.

Ned turned to Peter, motioning for him to explain. But for course, he was just standing there, dumbstruck. As if he didn’t stop crime on the daily. As if he wasn’t known for quippy remarks. As if he didn’t really want to tell anyone Ned was his boyfriend after all. 

“Something you need to talk about?” Mr. Harrington gave them a grin, which Ned supposed was his attempt to look welcoming and open.

“Peter?” he asked, pushing his boyfriend a few stumbling steps forward.

“Well,” Peter started, his face growing splotchy, “It’s just, I was looking at the Decathlon team rules, and…”

“Actually, the rules have just been changed.” With a bustling, purposeful air, MJ emerged from the office after Mr. Harrington and tacked a new piece of paper to the bulletin board, ripping the previous one down. “It’s what we were just discussing. I think you’ll find the exclusion of rule five especially appealing.”

“Wha-” Mr. Harrington’s face was whipping incomprehensibly between Peter and Ned, back to the bulletin board.

Ned nudged Peter, but it was MJ who spoke.

“They’re dating.”

“Oh.” Mr. Harrington blinked, and Ned found himself somehow sighing a sigh of relief that he hadn’t been the one to have to do the unloading. Evidentially neither him nor Peter were as good at being blunt like MJ. “Well.” And a giddy-looking smile came over his face, and he said, “This is actually really cute.” Which confirmed for Ned his original suspicions about telling Mr. Harrington turning things awkward had been accurate.

“I’ve gotta go,” Peter said, starting to march off and pulling Ned in tow.

“Wait!” Mr. Harrington was calling after them. “I can…I can give you pamphlets on how to have successful high school relationships! Maybe we could have a nice conversation about the science behind endorphins and kissing! Maybe-”

“This is what you signed us up for,” Ned told him as they finally left earshot. “Weird lectures about science and probably some anecdote about his wife. I hope you realize that.”

But Peter was just grinning sheepishly, and Ned found himself softening despite his reservations. “You’re impossible.”

4.

Flash wasn’t supposed to know at all.

Well. Not that they were hiding it from him necessarily. But it wasn’t like on their planned list of “People To Tell” Peter or Ned had ever considered putting down Flash.

It started because MJ was right, as she usually was. Peter was late to Decathlon practice because he had gone out on a mission on their break between school and practice, and Ned had gone out into the parking lot to look for him _again_ and he wasn’t answering any of his calls _again_ and he guessed he was just going to have to get used to this now, the not knowing, but it certainly wasn’t doing wonders for his anxiety. He was pacing along the bus line just waiting, when Peter finally stumbled into view, still wearing the suit.

“Sorry,” he was panting, raising the mask to just over his mouth. “I was trying to get back in time, it was just a small robbery but-”

Ned interrupted him with a kiss, pulling him close, trying to translate through his body the worry, his longing, his need for Peter to know how much he meant to him.

“Wow.” Peter said as they pulled away. “Okay. Hey.”

“Hey.” Ned smiled back at him. “You had me a little worried there.”

“Well-” Peter’s head whipped to the side, and Ned followed his gaze to…Flash?

“Oh. My. God. You’re kissing Spider-Man?” Flash holding a cellphone, recording the pair, and his jaw was wide open.

“Flash, it’s not what it looks like,” Ned started, even though it was, actually, exactly what it looked like.

“I knew you knew him,” Flash was pointing a finger at Ned, still recording. “There was that time he brought you like coffee or something.”

Peter had pulled his mask down back over to cover his entire face, and Ned was trying to think of a way to divert this situation, divert the camera pointing at both of them. All he could think to say was, “Listen, I…I need you to put the phone down. You can’t film this okay?” Which wasn’t the most eloquent nor most effective.

“Why?” Flash was staring at him, one eyebrow raised. “This is like the juiciest content I could possibly put out to my followers.”

“It’s because,” Ned screwed up his eyes, “um, well, there’s someone else in…in my life.” How could he say this without connecting Peter with Spider-Man? If he just left Peter out of it entirely, he could dissuade Flash from making any sort of link between Peter and a superhero alter-ego. He needed to pretend he was dating someone else, pretend-

“Are you trying to tell me you’re cheating on Parker with Spider-Man?”

“I…what?”

Flash had lowered the phone, something close to genuine hurt in his eyes. “’Cause that’s like…really screwed up. Cheating isn’t cool.”

“How did you know me and Peter were dating?”

Though Ned didn’t know it was possible, Flash’s scathing look deepened. “I have eyes, you know. But don’t try and deflect. You’re cheating on Parker?”

“I’m really sorry,” Ned said. “Please don’t show this to your followers. I know you don’t like me and all that, but we’re trying to keep his identify a secret.” He motioned to Peter who waved at Flash.

Flash didn’t wave back, but Ned knew the acknowledgement had worked its magic, if only slightly. Flash may not like cheating, but he definitely _did_ like Spider-Man. “I’m not sure. I feel like…” His face almost looked…conflicted? “I feel like I should show Parker this at least.”

“I’ll tell him.” Ned said. “I promise. We’ll talk about it.”

Flash squinted at him, and then ran a hand through his hair. “Fine. Whatever. It’s not like I care about Penis anyway.” Ned breathed out a long sigh of relief. “You better get back to practice. Mr. Harrington’s starting to get edgy. And Spidey?”

The boys both tensed again, waiting.

But Flash just walked away, shaking his head. “I expected better from you.”

Ned waited until Flash was fully out of view before turning to Peter. “We don’t tell MJ she was right about the Spider-Man being connected with random high schooler Ned Leeds thing, right?”

“No,” Peter let out a sigh, but there was laughter in his voice, “but we most certainly do tell her about Flash wanting to defend Peter Parker’s honor.”

“Oh, that we most certainly do.”

5.

The final fail was Tony, and Ned should have known it would fail all along because it was Peter’s turn again.

“I can’t do it, I’m too terribly awkward.”

“Yeah, but you have to.” Ned nudged him towards his phone. “what am I supposed to do, just call up Tony Freaking Stark on my cell phone and ask him to dinner?”

Peter stared at him. “That would be helpful, yes!” His finger was hovering over the call button, and he nearly pressed it. “Ughhhh, I can’t do it. I just feel so awkward.”

“How do you think I feel?” asked Ned. “Coming out to my boyfriend’s mentor-slash-father-figure who also happens to be billionaire genius world-saving superhero? It’s kind of intimidating.”

“That’s why we’re going to ask him out to dinner,” Peter said. “Well just take him out to eat, he loves food, and then we’ll just casually slip it in, and it’ll all be great.”

“I don’t know what of any of this has been casual or great so far,” Ned grumbled. “I think we’re like oh for four at this point, and that’s just out of the people we were _trying_ to tell.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter looked down, face downcast. “I know I’m super awkward at this, and I don’t mean to be. It’s not…it’s not that I don’t care for you, or that I’m embarrassed or anything. I just feel weird talking about who I’m dating. And then I freeze all up and feel awkward.”

“Oh.” Ned let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Well, I…I haven’t been perfect in this either. We’re both to blame. But we’re both just figure it out, right? As long as we’re there for each other, it’ll all be fine. Even if Flash thinks I’m cheating on you with Spider-Man.”

“You were really that worried to tell me you were dating a boy?” a voice buzzed out of the phone.

Both boys looked down in surprise, but at this point it wasn’t particularly shocking to see the words “Tony Stark” on the active call screen. Peter’s finger must not have missed the button by that much after all.

Peter closed his eyes, but Ned’s heart trilled at the small smile on his lips. “How much did you hear?”

“Oh, just about everything.”

“Right. Of course.”

“No, but wait, I’ll excuse the part where you were just going to causally slip this all in, because there are more important questions to ask. Like who is Flash and why does he think you’re cheating on Peter with Spider-Man?”

Ned took a long breath, matching his grin to Peter’s. “Are you still up for dinner?”

+1.

When Happy came to pick Peter up from Midtown, both boys were standing next to each other on the curb, fingers intertwined. He rolled down the window, eyes flicking between Ned and Peter, “Hey, Tony said something about picking you up for dinner. Is your friend coming too?”

Ned opened his mouth, ready to tell him differently, ready to step up for Peter since he had felt awkward, ready to embrace the new relationship, even if that meant embracing Peter didn’t always have to be the confident one. But instead, it was Peter who spoke, Peter who raised their hands up so Happy could see, Peter who said, “Actually, he’s my boyfriend.”

“Oh.” And Ned could have sworn the tiniest smile flitted across Happy’s face. “Okay, well, is your boyfriend coming too?”

“Yeah,” Peter squeezed their palms together. “Yeah, actually, he is.”

**Author's Note:**

> i hope this brightened your day, if just a tad. if you enjoyed, please consider leaving a comment down below, they are greatly appreciated :) regardless, please have a lovely day, and happy pride <3


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